suffering and a violation of your will.”
I need an example to understand this better.
Alright. I will give you an example. Imagine a mother who hits her child
as a way of educating him because, according to her, it is the form in
which the child obeys, without taking into account the physical and
psychological pain that this may be causing him. If she is really
convinced that her attitude is correct then she will have no problem
admitting that her husband hits her and that in order to justify this he
uses the same arguments that the lady uses regarding the son. But the
fact is that everyone makes us suffer when they hit us, surely this lady
must complain bitterly about her situation with her husband, and of
course she will not be in agreement that her husband continually hits
her since she suffers terribly from this. That mother must realise that if
she suffers when her husband hits her, her son must also be suffering just
as much when she hits him and if she wants to see reality and learn
from it, she will reach the conclusion that the act of hitting is bad in
itself, because it causes suffering and there is no reason that justifies it.
What is the solution for this woman? Renounce the use of violence
against her son, because in that way she conquers her own egoism,
her urge to alter by force the will of another more vulnerable being
and, at the same time, fight to free herself from the oppression of the
aggressive and egoistic husband who violently violates her own free
will. If the aggressor suffers on losing his victim it is not because the
victim is harming him, but rather because he does not want to
renounce his egoistic desire to alter by force the will of another being.
You previously said that you must not over-exert yourself to indulge
others. This appears to be a contradiction; because when you love
someone, do you not try to indulge them in everything so that they feel
happy?
It is a grave error to believe that you love others more when you
indulge them more, and it is the trap in to which many well-meaning
people fall. You need to help, understand and respect people that
you love, rather than indulge them. It is important to know the
difference between indulging and helping, because otherwise when
you indulge someone, instead of helping them you are harming them,
if what you are indulging is their egoism. And you harm yourself, if when
you indulge you submit your will to the egoism of another person, losing
your freedom.
And how do you distinguish between helping and indulging?
When you load onto your shoulders the tests and circumstances which